It is easy to avoid potential roommate problems when you and your mate can set initial rules to regulate the activities that take place in your dorm room. By establishing guidelines before the semester even begins, who brings what and how you wish to cooperate with one another, your lives will blend together instead of clash apart.

If your prospective roommate lives near you, arrange a lunch date where you can get a feeling for one another prior to first semester. Before the lunch date, write a list of your daily habits, including your sleeping schedule, music preferences, cigarette tolerance, study habits, and if you are innately a host or prefer to hang with friends outside of your home. Ask your roommate to make a preference list, as well, and compare your compassions over lunch. If a lunch date is impossible, emailing can be an equally successful substitution. No matter the situation, work with each other, by compromising in categories that are more and less important for you to follow.

Before making your first semester class schedule, try to coordinate with your roommate what both of your ideal schedules would look like. If your roommate is an early riser, it may sway you to schedule earlier classes, as well. No matter what university you attend, the freshman dorm rooms are very small; if your roommate wakes up early for class, chances are you will inevitably, too; forget tossing around in bed for another two hours and get your day started.

Setting ground rules before the semester begins is a solid way to come into school with a straight head. Keep in mind that your perceptions about college may be different once you are thrown into the situation, so if the ground rules have to change to fit yours or your roommate’s new lifestyles, allow them to be altered. Living with a roommate is about give and take, and constant compromise.

Discuss with your roommate who will bring what appliances to the dorm room. Try to equally distribute the expenses; one person brings the television and the DVD player, while the other brings the refrigerator, microwave, and vacuum. If your room is stocked with the electronics of just your roommate, you may be left feeling as a guest in the room rather than an equal; similarly, your roommate may feel he or she has the upper hand.

The crisis of the freshman roommate has been around for decades, yet colleges reinforce the idea year after year. Why is this? Because it works—freshman roommates teach you to live co-dependently while independently. Get excited to move in with your freshman roommate; for good times and bad, it’s an experience you will certainly never forget.